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Hate mail over Israel motion fills MPP inbox

The architect of a motion criticizing Israeli Apartheid Week that was passed unanimously by the Ontario Legislature is receiving anti-Semitic hate mail from around the world.

Progressive Conservative MPP Peter Shurman (Thornhill) said in an interview Monday he's surprised by the reaction to his Feb. 25 resolution in the House condemning the provocatively named campus event that criticizes Israel's treatment of Palestinians.

MPP Peter Shurman (SUPPLIED PICTURE)

Shurman, who is Jewish, has received email messages calling him everything from "the minister of kikes" to a "Nazi."

The motion received coverage in newspapers in Canada, the United States, Europe and the Middle East. Slews of bloggers also picked up the story.

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"I've had many congratulatory emails, but, sad to say, most of the emails have not (been kind). I'm getting very ugly emails," said Shurman, a former CFRB talk show host.

Even with that experience, he admits the episode "is so eye-opening to me."

Some Liberal MPPs are also being harassed for denouncing Israeli Apartheid Week, but many of the nastiest attacks have been against NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo (Parkdale-High Park) since speaking in favour of Shurman's resolution.

DiNovo, a United Church minister, is out of the country, but in an interview last week said she has been flooded with threatening messages at home and in the office.

"The backlash is unbearable," she said last Wednesday.

After being accused on Facebook of wielding a "Zionist playbook," the outspoken New Democrat said "leave me, my husband, and my children alone."

Last week, Horwath said she fired off her missive because she was "concerned that our caucus position of abstaining from the vote was not what was coming out in terms of the media reports."

Because it passed on a voice vote, any abstentions were not recorded. No dissent was heard by a Star reporter, who was the lone journalist in the House at the time.

Shurman said it was unfair that DiNovo was being targeted on Facebook and on left-leaning blogs critical of Israel.

"That's too bad because what DiNovo ... was doing is what DiNovo has consistently done, which is she was preaching peace," he said.

"She preaches peace, she preaches a non-violent (approach) and I say `preaches' because she does it in a ministerial way, which she is.

"Forget about me being a Conservative or her being an NDP member or Liberals, what was being said (on Feb. 25 in the House) was, in a respectful way, you try to iron out your differences," Shurman said.

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